Zebra? Donkey? Who Cares. It’s Got Stripes.

How did the zebra get its stripes? At the Marah Land Zoo in Gaza, it was by strategic application of hair dye, The Telegraph of London reported. After the zoo’s two zebras died, it proved too expensive to smuggle replacements into Gaza. So zoo workers turned to a pair of donkeys, using hair dye to paint stripes on the animals. “The children don’t know so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new,” said one of the zoo’s workers.

A version of this article appears in print on December 20, 2009, on Page WK4 of the New York edition with the headline: Zebra? Donkey? Who Cares. It’s Got Stripes. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe